Transcription
You described that China's economy model, uh, is rooted in its history. So, can we talk about Confucianism? Can you explain to what degree those roots run back to Confucianism and, in general, to other parts of Chinese history?
Yeah, Confucianism is more of a moral philosophy, uh, than, let's say, religion or a belief system. It prioritizes, um, social harmony above anything else. It's not about metaphysics but more about ethics. And at the individual level, the responsibility, the duties are all meant to preserve that social order. So, it's filial piety, um, it is loyalty, it is how to be a Chinese gentleman. Um, but things like saving, frugality is part of the moral discipline. Education is part of the moral cultivation. So, there's a very strong emphasis that you, as a citizen, have a responsibility to contribute to society as a whole.
On the education side, a part of Confucianism is a is a value for meritocracy. So, how does that permeate the education system in China? You've already spoken to it a little bit, the value of competition, and that it's already getting more and more intense. But it would be very interesting to get your understanding of the education system, its history, and as it stands today.
If China were relatively successful economically, a huge part of the reason is, by and large, it's been meritocratic. That is changing somewhat now. But the only way that you have still that many poor people, especially a couple decades back, still be in harmony with society, seeing all these rich people, you know, make tons of money and you're still belonging to that lower stratum. The only reason is that you believe that your children have a future through meritocracy. And even though it's imperfect, it's highly imperfect. Standardized testing, all this competition, all of the the the hours and the tutorials to studying for standardized exams. Well, that is a very realistic um scenario in China because there are that many people. You know, when I was growing up in school, we had 60 people per class and there were 10 classes in one grade. Now, imagine that many people applying for colleges, uh, in the in the American way. How many essays would have been written and need to be scrutinized? Also, that gives room for total corruption if you, you know, if you know what I mean, just connection-based. And actually, the standardized exams, as imperfect as it is to select talent, is still by and large fair. And, um, that's how that whole generation of, you know, entrepreneurs but bureaucrats, government officials were selected. If you look at the Chinese premiers, uh, the presidents of the past, they they all went to great schools, you know, a lot of them were engineers. Years and, uh, same thing for civil servants.
It has changed somewhat. You know, the meritocracy, I think, is is eroding in China. I'm worried about that because it is fine that you get into a good university based on your own merit, but finding a job now becomes much less meritocratic. People with connections get jobs more easily than than others. Of course, this is not just a unique Chinese phenomenon. It's actually everywhere. But I guess what I'm saying is that that meritocracy which was so fundamental to the Chinese ancient Chinese education system, by the way, civil servants were selected based on standardized exams in the past, that's always been throughout Chinese history and that relates to Confucianism. Now, the opportunities and coming back to the competition point is that the opportunities getting slimmer and slimmer. And again, this is not a unique Chinese phenomenon. Jobs, where are the jobs going to be, right? So, um, meritocracy has become more of a problem.
Uh, do you have any memories of your own experience in terms of competition, the good and the bad of it? And maybe, uh, from that, can you, uh, pull out the thread of of the value of that kind of competition?
Basically, you know, uh, I grew up in the Soviet Union, so there's a kind of brutality to the competition. Um, but I think it ultimately molds really interesting people. There is a good and bad part of competition. And I remember when I was going into middle school, every single midterm exam, final exam, you were ranked from number one to number 800 in your entire grade and publicly displayed.
Nice. Nice. Right. Um, imagine, you know, the majority of people and how they feel. Um, but it it does drive ambition in part, and you don't take anything for granted. Uh, and you work hard. You keep, you know, you keep the spirit up. But, you know, going to the US, I finally realized that Americans are totally competitive. It's just that they don't display it. It's not as apparent. I I remember I go I went to a very competitive high school, but everyone's like so chill. "Oh, I'm not studying." "Oh, you know." They're they're studying. They are secretly studying. Um, when I was doing my PhD at Harvard, people, "Oh, you know, my parents say don't work so hard." You know, people say, "Don't say you worked." They're working hard, right? Just you don't show it. In China, it's it's kind of, um, a noble thing to show that you're working hard and that you're number one or that you're top of the class, and you want to display it. You want to let everybody know. But in the US, everybody's like secretly doing it.
Yeah. Some of it is the is the signaling. The culture emphasizes the signaling of, is it better to be kind of for everything to come easily, thereby showing that you're a genius, it comes naturally, or is it better to show that you worked extremely hard for the thing? But the ultimate result is there's still competition. But I don't know, when you're visually displaying and, uh, explicitly stating that it's good to be number one and it's bad to be number 800, I think that permeates throughout the culture to where you understand, uh, first of all, you understand that hard work is the only way to, uh, improve, to to to succeed in life. And second of all, you just create this framework of, uh, early on understanding what it means to live a good life. And a part of that is to, uh, to find the thing you're damn good at and get even better at it, master it, become hopefully the best person in the world at that thing. I don't know. That's a extremely important lesson for society to teach. That's the right, I would say, the right kind of competition, or the efficient kind of competition.
I feel that in the Chinese education system, it was not necessarily efficient because it kind of frames you. It molds you to be thinking in a certain way, uh, what's been taught to you. You don't have the bandwidth or the time or creative freedom to be more creative and to think outside the box. There, it's just the box. You maximize the box and that's it. You don't actually know what's outside of the box and you never actually go there. That's the bad part of Chinese competition. And when I got to the US, uh, the high school teachers were asking us to question authority, to question text. I'm like, "Wow, really? Can do that?" So I started asking why.